Restaurant Mystery Shopping &

Guest Satisfaction Research

Kinēsis provides guest experience research for a variety of restaurant clients from quick serve, fast casual to fine dining. Our suite of mystery shopping and guest satisfaction research programs is designed to help restaurants understand and take advantage of guest loyalty and satisfaction.

While there is a significant amount of variation from category to category, research has determined that among the following five dimensions of the guest experience, “service” has the second strongest relationship to a guest’s intention to return slightly behind “value”.

For each percent increase in guest service dimension, return intent increases by 0.23%, similarly for each percent decrease in guest service dimension, return intent decreases by 0.12%.

Mystery Shopping Research Purposes

In aligning sales and service behaviors to the brand, mystery shopping can serve several purposes, among them:

Guest Experience:

Guest experience shops test execution and consistency to both measure and motivate service behaviors, specifically behaviors which drive return intent.

Competitive:

These evaluations benchmark sales and service performance to key competitors. Head-to-head comparisons reveal competitive differentiators and areas of opportunity.

Mystery Shopping Objectives

Research objectives are customized to each client; broadly many of our core research objectives include:

Align brand standards with guest expectations.

Align employee behaviors with brand standards.

Determine which service behaviors have the most ROI potential by identifying those with the strongest influence on guest return intent.

Alert management to instances of extremely good as well as extremely poor guest experiences.

Motivate a consistent guest experience over time.

Obtain actionable information to improve the customer experience.

Benchmark the guest experience against the competition.

Identify top guest service performers who can be used as leaders or role models.

Taste Value and Service: Guest Return Intent Drivers

Guest loyalty/ return intent has significant financial implications for a restaurant. Every time a guest visits a restaurant they learn something as a result of the experience, and depending on what they learn, they adjust their behavior based on the experience. The guest may stay longer or leave early, purchase more items or purchase less, tell others of their experience, or decide to return for a repeat experience. This deck contains research into what guest service attributes drive return intent.